The last paid holiday

[darkemeralds]

Today is the last paid holiday of my career.

Though it's true that Americans don't take much time off compared to, say, Europeans, I'm still very cognizant of the generous plan my public sector place of employment has given me all these years; how many days they've paid me not to be at work.

From the very outset, when I was a just a wee Word Processing Clerk I (anyone remember those?), they gave me ten days of vacation, twelve of sick leave, and three personal days per year.

The vacation-day count has gone up along with the workload, so that when I turn in my badge next week, they're going to pay me for all the vacation I haven't actually managed to take for the last several years. That drop in the retirement bucket will make an audible splash, I can tell you.

As to sick leave...well, I learned an important lesson in my early days. A woman I worked with was singled out for praise because she had never taken a single sick day in, I forget, something like three years. Her reward? A free day off. It was obvious to me that she could have skipped the praise and had twelve paid days off in each of those years.

(Also, praising someone for the "virtue" of naturally good health is, at the very least, annoying.)

In short, I've never been afraid to "call in well" when I needed a mental health day. I'm pretty sure that's why a) I never climbed higher in the organization and b) the benefits of retiring at the first possible moment outweigh the big pay cut I'm about to take.

Besides, they don't buy back your unused sick leave. I'd've been dumb not to use it.

Back to work tomorrow for a few more days of toil in the fields of the System.

Comments

[lamentables]

So close!

As one of those Europeans, the concept of a sick day allocation is pretty baffling. We call in sick when we're sick (with documentation from doctor if it's longer than a couple of days) and get paid by either the employer or, if it's longer term, the state. As a government employee, abrinsky received full pay for his 3 months off pre/post back surgery last year.

Not only do we get a far more generous holiday allowance than you do but there is a general principle of making people use the full allocation, discouraging payment in lieu or carrying over. That someone doesn't take their holidays is considered a flag for possible fraud/embezzlement (because they fear discovery).

[darkemeralds]

As Michael Pollan pointed out in a talk I went to after the publication of Cooked, the labor movements in the US and Europe different gah! differed on one essential point: in the US, labor agitated for more pay. In Europe, the emphasis was on time off. (This related to his main topic, as I recall, because the American standard resulted in a need for convenience foods.)

Of course, the American labor movement just reflected the already-existent American ethos: that wealth is paramount and that long, hard hours of work, while in no way guaranteeing wealth, are at least a necessary prerequisite, and character building.

Or some such bullshit. The degree to which I feel guilty and apologetic about being able to retire is a pretty accurate gauge of my culture's pervasive beliefs about work, money, and worth. Somehow, I'm going to soldier through it and retire anyway.

[lamentables]

Oh, that's a really interesting response - I had no sense of a reason for the fundamental difference, just dismissing as another 'Americans are weird' thing. But it does tie up so many points of what I observe as your nation's weirdness.

Of course, we have many dreadful things going on in our labour market at the moment, such as a minimum wage below that is less than the living wage, and the sudden proliferation of 'zero hours' contracts, but these are - I hope - aberrations.

[darkemeralds]

I hope they're aberrations too, and that the UK, and Europe generally, can hold the line against multinational corporatism long enough for that dinosaur to fall.

[writerscramp]

As one of those Europeans, the concept of a sick day allocation is pretty baffling. We call in sick when we're sick (with documentation from doctor if it's longer than a couple of days) and get paid by either the employer or, if it's longer term, the state. As a government employee, abrinsky received full pay for his 3 months off pre/post back surgery last year.

In the US, we have FMLA (Family & Medical Leave Act), which means that in a workplace with more than 50 employees (i.e., doesn't apply in smaller workplaces, which is most of them) a worker can take up to 3 months of unpaid leave for a qualifying family or medical issue (maternity leave, adoption, medical problem, or care of a sick relative) without losing their job.

That's about one notch above Scrooge on the Miserly Treatment of Workers Scale, yet American employers get the vapors at the very notion of FMLA. The idea of paying people for that time, even if indirectly via the state, would bring on the full wailing and gnashing of teeth. You never saw a more hysteria-prone bunch than the American business sector.

[lamentables]

Wow, in the UK you get 6 weeks maternity pay at 90% of your average salary plus up to 33 weeks at a statutory minimum. Employers are refunded all of the statutory maternity pay, and smaller businesses get a bit extra to compensate for some of the other associated costs.

Statutory maternity leave is up to 52 weeks. Minimum is 2 weeks, 4 if you work in a factory.

And the US response to anything like this, and socialised health care in particular, is beyond my comprehension.

[darkemeralds]

It's really beyond mine, too. And even as I stand here, firm in my progressive beliefs and my convictions about how all work and no play make me a dull person, I can feel the pressure of the culture inside me. (Is culture inside one? I guess it is...) It's chanting all the mantras of American exceptionalism, Calvinist morality, and general outrage at all things European. Work is necessary. More is better. You don't deserve. They don't deserve. Bootstraps. You can do better. Try harder. Change yourself. Art and refinement are for sissies. Lazy. Free rider. Introversion is a character flaw.

The book Quiet by Susan Cain was provocative in suggesting that the American corporate culture of today was created largely by Harvard Business School's stated standard since the 1950s of admitting only extroverts. We're the most extroverted population in the world--apparently by a wide margin--and creating a whole cadre of ultra-powerful business leaders without regard to introvert-type values probably made sense to those people. It resulted, Cain suggests, in the incredible arrogance that caused the crash of 2008.

It's certainly a sensational claim, and subject to all kinds of argument, but it feels right to me and gave me a surprising degree of the "ah-ha!" relief that comes from at least having the puzzle pieces slot into place, however unsatisfactory the resulting picture is.

[lamentables]

Again, that's an interesting insight. The whole American exceptionalism thing is, needless to say, beyond me too. Some aspects of it, as I've seen it reported/analysed, I find truly astounding.

I'm enjoying this conversation--hope you don't mind!

[darkemeralds]

In The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond puts forth a fascinating idea about the Polynesian and Micronesian tendency to extreme obesity in the face of the modern diet. He points out that only the most naturally fat-retaining individuals were likely to have survived the privation of the long voyage to these tiny islands. The resulting population of the island is highly selected, therefore, for low metabolism and high fat creation and retention. Introduce sugar, and bam!

If you accept that introversion and extraversion are evolved characteristics, heritable and genetic (which there's at least some evidence for), you could make a case that the United States is a kind of Polynesia for extraversion: coming here would have tended to be a choice made by extroverts (Explore! conquer! evade gaming debts! get land! say fuck you to the Church! Whatever!) So we wind up with a population--and therefore a whole culture--heavily weighted towards extraversion, with all the good and bad that that entails.

A great deal of the self-improvement/self-help mania in this country is, essentially, aimed at showing introverts how to be extraverts. I've been delighted to see so much discussion in the last couple of years that gives introversion its due. A quick glance at online articles on the subject, however, shows a discouraging number of "you're not really an introvert" headlines, and "here's how to fix that," and "introversion isn't a real thing" and "you probably don't know what you're talking about."

Sigh.

[darkemeralds]

As a side note: here too, we're expected to get a doctor's note if we're out for more than two or three days. So many people (in other jobs--not mine) have no healthcare coverage, though, that the cost of getting a doctor's note may be more than they can bear. And so many jobs that offer no health insurance also offer little or no paid sick time in the first place. So (if I were in that situation) I miss two days' pay, and must also find however much the clinic will charge to look at me and issue a note.

Naturally, I'm going to drag my ass in to work if I'm even half-alive, and spread my sickness far and wide. Seriously, one of the main reasons people balk at using mass transit in this country is that it is used by sick workers who can't afford cars or time off, and hence city buses are germ-aganzas in the winter months. (And I'll admit that I've had fewer colds since I started bike commuting.)

OMG Don't get me started. Whoops. Too late.

[panisdead]

Your countdown posts are so vicariously exciting! I can't wait for your last day. :)

[darkemeralds]

:D

Me neither. Well, it's practically here. Nobody's working much this week or next and I'm just puttering around, cleaning up my desk and finishing a few last things.

[hunningham]

Okay, I'm all boggled by the American approach to holidays & sickdays but countdown = wow! I am so excited on your behalf.

[darkemeralds]

It's very hard to understand, and so deeply embedded in the fiber of American culture and society that it seems impossible to tease out and explain. I make an attempt above in my comment to lamentables, but it's the subject of vast socioeconomic history tomes, I'm sure.

Anyway, thank you! I'm excited too.

[hunningham]

And I've been reading thro' the comments and your explanations of US culture & political history. Completely fascinating all round

[writerscramp]

Wow, those are hugely generous vacation/sick leave benefits, but you're right that it's nowhere near as generous as Europe. At this point, I despair that it'd take a damn revolution for us to get anywhere near the leave benefits of Europe, but even if something more akin to your benefits was the standard, think how much better off the American workplace -- and more importantly, American workers -- would be. Instead, the leave I started with seems to be more of the standard for the American office, never mind other workplaces like restaurants. (For reference, I started w/5 sick days, 2 weeks vacation, no personal day, and 7 paid holidays. I will have been there 13 years in April, and I currently have 4 weeks vacation (my "reward" at my 5 and 10 year anniversaries was an additional week, respectively), and our current company policies about the others for everyone have changed to 6 sick days, 9 paid holidays, and 1 personal day. I don't think I'll continue to get a week of added vacation for every 5th anniversary, but I guess I'll find out.)

Good for you for getting that important lesson about sick leave, by the way. That is absolutely how I think it should be used, and I encourage others (coworkers, friends, etc.) to treat it that way whenever the subject comes up. Unfortunately, it's a case of do as I say, not as I do. :( I used to be better about taking mental health days instead of leaving sick leave on the table before I was promoted, but I'm hyperaware of how much disruption my absence causes for the people around me (which isn't to say that I'm a hugely important cog, because I'm not). And with the added vacation, I admit I feel too guilty most of the time to also take sick leave unless I'm actually sick. Score another point for the insidious and toxic corporate culture of America.

[darkemeralds]

"Insidious and toxic" is a great description. We're still heavily union, which has always been greatly to my benefit, though I've never held a represented position.

We top out at three weeks' vacation per year, too, but we can accumulate up to nine weeks. After that we lose it--they simply erase any excess over 360 hours on January 1. This bucket size of 360 hours probably originated with the intention of getting workaholics down off their workaholic horses for everyone's good. But the practical outcome is that it gets harder and harder to find time to take the vacation, and even here, there's a subtle (sometimes not-so-subtle) message that you're a better team player if you just don't use much of it--and certainly never all three weeks at once.

This is how I've wound up with nine weeks of unused vacation on the books that, as of January 1, will be paid into my deferred comp account. It's not as insidious and toxic as the corporate model, but it's gotten progressively less benign over my career. The corporate model tail wags the government dog...just kind of slowly, with a ten year time lag.

That revolution can't come soon enough, but I suspect it's not going to look like a revolution. The metaphor that springs to mind is little green shoots coming up out the ash-field of Mt St Helens in 1981.